Experiencing Religious Diversityand Education in an International Context
Robert Jackson
As I write this piece, media hysteria about what the Archbishop of Canterbury did or didn’t say about Islamic law is but one story obscuring the fact that there is an unprecedented amount of serious discussion going on internationally about inter-cultural education, and education about religious diversity. Indeed, the European Union has designated 2008 as the year of intercultural dialogue (
I have had the privilege to be involved in some of the activity, and last year took study leave in order to take part in various international projects on religions and education. Some of these were in the Far East – in South Korea, Japan and Indonesia – and others in Europe, related to the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.I also worked in Turkey with Turkish Muslim scholars on broadening religious education to include studies of religions other than Islam (Jackson 2007), in Norway (the keynote at the Nordic conference on religious education in Stavanger),in Australia, with religious education academics, and I gave the keynote lecture at the European Association for the Study of Religions conference in Bremen, which was dedicated to the interface between religious studies and religious education (Jackson 2008).
It is hard to imagine a more vibrant time for working on issues of religious diversity in relation to education on the international scene. Many of the issues confined to individual states are now transnational. Indonesia’s debates about avoiding inter-religious conflict have international reverberations. Within Europe, states like France, which have kept religion firmly in private space in the past, are now participating in the international discussion, and are looking for ways of increasing public understanding of religions through education. Other states, which have favoured one particular religion or denomination in their education systems, are being urged by inter-governmental agencies to broaden their policies and practice in order to increase understanding of religions and to increase tolerance.
Far Eastern and Australian Collaborations
My work in the Far East included developing discussions on teaching about religions in the public space and looking at the interface between learning about religious diversity in different societies in relation to various forms of values education – peace education, human rights education and education for democratic citizenship, for example. I took part in a conference on Korean re-unification (religion was a key theme – Tim Jensen from Denmark was another speaker), and in meetings with Buddhist scholars from DonggukUniversity and with members of the Korean Association for Religious Freedom. In Indonesia, I participated in a conference organised by the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief in Makassar, Sulawesi, on ‘Teaching for tolerance in the Indonesian Context: The contribution of school education’.[1] In Japan I contributed to anInternational Symposium on Religious Education Textbooks, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of TaishoUniversity, in Tokyo.I also gave a presentation on ‘Living with difference through religious and citizenship education’ atAoyamaGakuinUniversity, Tokyo, a Methodist foundation.One of the outputs from the Japanese collaboration is a book co-edited with Satoko Fujiwara, Professor of Religious Studies at TaishoUniversity, which includes contributions from Korea, Indonesia and Japanand fromthe regions of Europe, North America and the Middle East (Ursula King responds to the various pieces in the final chapter). Contributorsare from different religious and philosophical backgrounds, including Buddhist, Christian, Humanist, Jewish and Muslim (Jackson & Fujiwara 2008). The book explores different facets of peace education in relation to the topic of religion and opens up the discussion about the relationship between religious education and peace education.
In June I visited the AustralianCatholicUniversity in Brisbane to give the keynote lecture at the national conference on religious education there, to lead some workshops and to take part in the launch of a two volume international handbook involving an editorial team from Australia, the USA and Europe(de Souza, Engebretson, Durka, Jackson & McGrady 2006). The handbook has nearly 90 contributions from scholars around the world. My own section focuses on religious education and culture and includes chapters from Geir Skeie and Sissel Østberg (Norway), Eleanor Nesbitt, Andrew Wright and Liam Gearon (UK), Fernand Ouellet (Canada), Mireille Estivalezes (France), Wilna Meijer (the Netherlands), Bruce Grelle and Mary Elizabeth Moore (USA), Terence Lovat, Philip Hughes and Richard Rymarz (Australia), John Wright (New Zealand), Recep Kaymakcan (Turkey) and David Chidester (South Africa), plus a couple of my own contributions.
The Council of Europe
Within Europe, work focused on three projects. I have been involved with the Council of Europe’s work on religious diversity and intercultural education since 2002. The Council of Europe is an inter-governmental organisation, currently including 47 member states, plus various observer states from outside Europe, and is concerned with the promotion of human rights. It is based in Strasbourg, and is home of the European Court of Human Rights as well as comprising various divisions dealing with matters such as education and social policy. Members of Parliament from the member states (including 18 British MPs) serve on the Parliamentary Assembly, while the Foreign Ministers of the member states serve on the Committee of Ministers. These bodies formulate policy recommendations, and the Committee of Ministers periodically issues joint policy statements that go to all the governments of member states.Theseaim to influence policy development in particular countries. The project I was involved in looked at how issues of religious diversity could be incorporated into intercultural education and citizenship education across Europe. The project brought together educators from many European countries and observer states, and there were various conferences, meetings and workshops. My role included being part of the writing team which produced the final project book (Keast 2007). This has now been translated into several languages (including French, Russian, Greek and Norwegian) and is being used as the basis for various follow-up conferences around Europe. Another role was to assist in the drafting of the Ministerial Declaration which will go to member states later this year. This recommendation provides a set of principles that can be used by all 47 member states. These include:
- agreement that religion is at least a “cultural fact” that contributes, along with other elements such as language and historical and cultural traditions, to social and individual life;
- information on and knowledge of religions and philosophies fall within the public sphere and should be taught in order to develop tolerance as well as mutual understanding and trust;
- religious or philosophical conceptions of the world and beliefs develop on the basis of individual learning and experience, and should not be entirely predefined by one’s family or community;
- an integrated approach to religious, moral and civic values should be encouraged in education;
- intercultural dialogue and its religious dimension are an essential precondition for the development of tolerance anda culture of “living together”.
One dissemination conference was held in Athens in October last year, and more are to follow. One of my other roles for the Council of Europe was to conduct a feasibility study for the establishment of a European Centre for Human Rights Education. My recommendation of an interdisciplinary centre, incorporating citizenship, intercultural, global and peace education, as well as studies of religious diversity,was adopted; the Centre will be based in Oslo and will be launched later this year. A further Council of Europe initiative is an interdisciplinary project on ‘intercultural autobiography’, to which Julia Ipgrave and I provide input from the perspective of religious education. Materials are currently being trialled in different parts of Europe and will be made available later this year.
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The second project was for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has 56 participant states, including most European states plus the USA and Canada. It is engaged in setting standards in fields including military security, economic and environmental co-operation, conflict resolution and human rights issues. In relation to human rights, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) works in the areas of election observation, democratic development, human rights, tolerance and non-discrimination, and law. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights is therefore well placed to play a role in facilitating dialogue and understanding between different religions and beliefs and in making educational policy recommendations.
I was a member of the drafting team of the Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools, and gave a speech at the launch in Madrid on 28th November 2007. The Toledo Guiding Principles were written in response to requests from the UN and other inter-governmental bodies to facilitate teaching about religions and beliefs in order to promote tolerance and understanding. It was fascinating working with international human rights lawyers from countries such as Italy, Serbia, Spain, the USA and the UK(Professor Malcolm Evans, Dean of the BristolLawSchool)on this project. The drafting team as a whole reflects a range of different religious and non-religious positions, helping to ensure that the perspective of different religious and belief communities is taken into account and that the guiding principles are balanced and inclusive. The Toledo Guiding Principles includes chapters on the human rights framework and teaching about religions and beliefs, preparing curricula, teacher education and respecting rights in the process of implementing courses in teaching about religions and beliefs.
The full text of the Toledo Guiding Principles (OSCE 2007) is available as a free download at: will be going to Washington in May to speak at the launch of the Toledo Guiding Principles in North America.
European Commission Framework 6 REDCo Project
The third European involvement is a research project funded by the European Commission Framework 6 programme, entitled‘Religion in Education: A Contribution to Dialogue or a Factor of Conflict in Transforming Societies of European Countries?’(REDCo) ( This project involves collaborative research by teams from nine European universities – two from Germany, plus the Russian Federation, Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain and the UK. There are many strands to the research, including cross-European surveys of young people’s views about religions and education and a range of studies of teachers, pupils and public opinion, all using the interpretive approach developed at Warwick as a stimulus to theory and method (Jackson 2008). The project’s first book is already out (Jackson, Miedema, Weisse and Willaime 2007), and a second should be available by the time this article ispublished (Knauth, Bertram-Troost, Ipgrave and Jozsa 2008), plus a third from a closely related project on children’s dialogue(McKenna, Ipgrave and Jackson 2008). The Warwick contribution to the REDCo Project includes school based research by teachers and lecturers working together as a ‘community of practice’, developing the interpretive approach to religious education in different contexts. Research conferences for the whole European REDCo Project have already been held in Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Tartu, Granada, Melilla and Amsterdam,with more to follow inStavanger, Paris and Warwick. The Warwick meeting in November will be the last formal meeting of the project and will include an opportunity to present findings to the public.
Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit
The projects outlined above are just one aspect of the work of the newly expanded Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, based in the Institute of Education at the University of Warwick. Current staff include myself, Professors Eleanor Nesbitt and Leslie Francis, Jim Beckford, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Associate Professor Judith Everington, Senior Research Fellows, Elisabeth Arweck and Mandy Robbins, and Research Fellows Ursula McKenna,Emyr Williams, Tania ap Siôn and David Lankshear. Julia Ipgrave, Kevin O’Grady and AndrewVillage also contribute to the Unit’s research as Associate Fellows. For details of current and recent research projects and further details of staff, our masters level courses by distance learning and our doctoral programme, please visit
References
de Souza, M., Engebretson, K., Durka, G., Jackson, R., McGrady, A., (Eds). (2006). International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimensions of Education. (2 Vols) Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Academic Publishers.
Jackson, R. (2007) European Institutions and the Contribution of the Study of Religion to General Education in the Public Sphere in in İlyas Çelebi, Mustafa Sinanoğlu, Seyfi Kenan and Ahmet Kavas(Eds.) Avrupa Birliği Sürecinde Dini Kurumlar ve Din Eğitimi (Religious Institutions and Education in the Process of European Union: Comparative Analysis of Religious Institutions and Education in the European Union and Turkey), (Istanbul: Ensar Nesriyat & ISAV), pp.79-118.
Jackson, R. (2008) Teaching about Religions in the Public Sphere: European Policy Initiatives and the Interpretive Approach, Numen: International Review for the History of Religions, 55 (2/3), 151-182.
Jackson, R. and Fujiwara, S. (Eds.) (2008), Peace Education and Religious Plurality: International Perspectives, London, Routledge.
Jackson, R. Miedema, S. Weisse, W. & Willaime, J.-P. (Eds.) (2007)Religion and Education in Europe:Developments, Contexts and Debates, Münster, Waxmann. (see
Keast, J. (Ed.) (2007) Religious Diversity and Intercultural Education: A Reference Book for Schools (Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing).
Knauth, T., Bertram-Troost, G., Ipgrave, J. and Jozsa, D-P.(Eds.) (2008) Encountering Religious Pluralism in School and Society. A Qualitative Study of Teenage Perspectives in Europe, Münster, Waxmann.
McKenna, U. Ipgrave, J. & Jackson, R. (2008) Interfaith Dialogue by Email in Primary Schools: An Evaluation of the Building E-Bridges Project,Münster, Waxmann.
OSCE (2007) The Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religion or Belief. Warsaw: Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. (Hard copies are available from OSCE. A free text download is available at
Robert Jackson is Professor of Education in the Institute of Education at the University of Warwick and Director of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. His books include Hindu Children in Britain (with Eleanor Nesbitt) (Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books 1993), Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach (London, Hodder and Stoughton 1997), International Perspectives on Citizenship, Education and Religious Diversity (London, RoutledgeFalmer 2003) and Rethinking Religious Education and Plurality (London, RoutledgeFalmer 2004) plus the titles mentioned above. He is Editor of the British Journal of Religious Education.
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